I don’t think so. For so many cases to be overturned spells trouble. If the evidence was so compelling to the appeals courts that the sentence ought to be overturned, surely the Judicial and the Jury should have noticed the error of their ways initially.
catsix is right. It’s not just mistaken convictions, but new evidence, errors in interpretting sentencing guidelines, improper jury conduct, Etc. that can go towards a reversal on appeal.
Sam
I’ll agree with you here Greathouse.
And if any of those who are opposed to the death penalty have one of those yellow ribbon magnets on your car then your being hypocritical. Your saying it’s wrong to sentence someone to death who killed another but it’s okay to kill those who “may” kill someone.
But from reading that link, and I may be wrong, it’s not the convictions that are overturned, but the death sentences. So having one’s sentence commuted to life without parole would still count as part of the 35% without necessarily being a case of an innocent man wrongly convicted.
Like I said,
Perhaps I should have made it more clear for you by saying “a reversal of sentencing on appeal”, but it’s not always just the sentencing that is reversed and that’s why I didn’t say it.
Sam
You know, this is completely false.
How many juries have you served on?
I’ve served on three juries. Now, I may not be a genius, but I like to think I’m not a complete idiot. Why wasn’t I excluded from those juries?
Prosecutors and defense attorneys do not have complete control over jury selection. They can challange jurors “for cause”, but they have only a limited number of peremptory challanges. They can’t just throw people off the jury for being smart. Doesn’t happen.
Every jury I’ve served on has been staffed by normal competant people. Where does this stereotype come from that only idiots are allowed to serve on juries? In my opinion this stereotype is hugely damaging to the rule of law, and I would appreciate you refraining from undermining the legitimacy of our system of government out of ignorance.
And both sides have to agree on who’s picked for the jury. The qualities each side would seek as you’ve described here are those of a reasonably intelligent person, yes?
Look, as you might have guessed, I served on a jury. The lawyers on both sides and the judge asked surprisingly few questions. They were mainly about whether we could set aside whatever prejudices we had developed over the course of our lives and make our determinations based on the evidence. That, and our level of education, occupation, family life, place of residence, and maybe one or two other demographic points were used to select us.
The people that served with me were not the stupidest people on earth. Many of us had strong opinions. Everybody was reasonably bright and well-informed. Everybody comprehended the tactics each of the lawyers used. Most importantly everybody was passionate about getting it right and did their duty with the utmost seriousness. The conclusion CKDH drew and how he drew it is just uninformed bullshit, IME.
One. I was called up one other time, but rejected when they found I was a Ph.D. and actuary (knowledgable in pension laws.)
I did say “generally”, and I was certainly exaggerating for emphasis, but watch the exclusion process sometime.
The one jury I was on, after about fifteen minutes of testimony by one side (the other side didn’t show up), the judge told us we must decide the case this-and-so. One of the jurors asked, “Why?” and the judge said, “You’re off the jury,” and pulled in an alternate from the jury room (who hadn’t even heard the testimony, such as it was) who would decide as the judge instructed. That’s why my comment, the jury must do exactly as the judge tells them, asking “Why?” is a capital offense.
However, just because I didn’t serve on juries doesn’t mean I’m not familiar with them. I dealt some with expert witness testimony (not myself, but helping a colleague prepare), and I have a couple lawyers as friends and family… and likely future family-member in lawschool.
They all tell me pretty much the same thing: Lawyers generally want jurors who will think the way the lawyers tell them to, not who will think for themselves. Financial cases are the worst, of course, anyone with financial knowledge (which tends to mean math skills) gets kicked off pretty quickly.
I’m not saying this is unfair – if both sides have equally skillful lawyers, then it’s a contest of wits between the lawyers. I think that’s a helluva way to run a justice system. It’s not much better than letting two knights fight it out, and the one who is the most skillful fighter wins, God (and therefore Justice) was on that one’s side. We’ve replaced the knights with lawyers, and the one who is the best speech-maker wins, and the Jury (and therefore Justice) was on that one’s side.
Yes, you’re correct, they only have so many pre-emptory discharges. And of course, they’d never come out and say, “We don’t want this one, she’s too smart” – that would be not very politic. And potentially disastrous if that information got to the jurors who were selected: “Oh, he thinks I’m not so smart, eh?” So, I’m not saying that every single person on a jury is stupid, but I’m saying that the average intelligence of the average jury is way below that of the general population.
Also, of course, there’s the other side to it: top businesspeople and bright people who don’t want to waste time on the jury can find ways to get out of it. So the sample basis is biased, right from the start.
That is, yes. But if you look at other factors like if in a rape case, the prosecution wants women or fathers, the defense wants somebody else, that’s purely on emotion there. They want someone who will merely feel empathy for their side, not someone who can set aside personal feelings in favor of facts.
Damn right. My brother has been self-employed for much of the past two decades and always gets himself out of jury duty. All it takes is one phrase: “Fry the maggot!”
mack, you are sort of arguing against the grain here. CDH’s statement isn’t all that controversial in most legal circles, and jury selection is a profession: so much so that they’ll hire experts to help the lawyers do it in larger trials.
When my dad wanted to get out of federal jury duty, he read the informational packet he was sent, and then wrote a letter detailing his prejudices against lawyers, corporations, and wealthy people. He also steadfastly stated that lacking omniscience he was in no position to vote guilty, ever, because in his mind there would be no way to escape reasonable doubt.
He received a letter in the mail thanking him for his time and asking him to please not show up at the court house.
Had he posted something along the lines of his follow-up instead of his initial ‘stupidest people on earth’ post I wouldn’t have taken issue. And I don’t have a problem with lawyers doing as much as they can to choose jurors who are best for their client. I’d certainly want my lawyer to do that. However, his initial post was inflammatory, or, as he put it, “exaggerat[ed] for emphasis”, and to me wrong on it’s face, so I felt compelled to reply.
sometimes I’m a bit slow to clue in. Peterson was convicted in California, not Texas. The rate slightly better in California: 33% error rate. Same cite.
Have a read through the study. It is fascinating.
Har dee har. What a funny story…not. Unless there is a very good reason such as serious illness in the family, people who weasel out of jury duty are fucking irresponsible assholes who are not deserving to live in a free society.
Haj
The two jurors I saw seemed emotional yet rational. Nancy Grace, as always, seemed strident, biased and overly emotional. (And, yes, I know her history.)
I think the death penalty is appropriate in some cases. Killing your pregnant wife and dumping her body, along with the body of your 8 month old son, into the San Francisco Bay certainly seems like one of those cases.
Zebra, you may not show any emotion during the trial. Would you pull into a parking lot and call your lover when you were supposed to be putting up Missing Person posters? Would you neglect to tell that lover, “Oh, by the way, my pregnant wife is missing.” Would you send birthday gifts to your lover while your spouse and child were missing? Would you tell the police that your 8-months pregnant wife knew about your lover but was “okay” with it? Would you go fishing in the same area where their bodies just happened to surface?
If you did all that, and happened to be innocent of murder, then you are the stupidest and unluckiest bastard in the United States.
I know this is totally wrong-headed, and that it could lead to a very opressive judicial system, but I agree with it.
Or at least, what if the first 12 people who turn up to jury duty get appointed. Period. No selection, no “weeding out” no BS, just 12 regular folks with opinions and morals maybe even some insight? For each “Hang 'em high” person in the bunch you can bet there’d be a “Killin’ is always wrong” proponent–it’d balance. And just give it a majority vote with the judge as a tiebreaker.
What’s wrong with that?
How about the financial hardship of missing work? Whatever amount he’d have gotten during jury duty, it wasn’t going to be close to what his take home pay would be, and it was an additional 35 miles a day commuting.
He didn’t have an 8 month old son. His son was never born.
Don’t get me started on the idiocy of the court system regarding travel.
When I got out of the USAF (overseas assignment), I spent a couple of months with my family while I searched for an apartment. They lived in Suffolk County. I had no car, and rode to the railroad with my mother after I got a job in NYC.
Riverhead must have been waiting. Four weeks after I got out, they wanted me in Riverhead for jury duty, 70 or so miles in the opposite direction of the job I was just starting. To make matters worse (and the reason they were probably waiting on me), I had used up my postponements.
To get to Riverhead, I would have either had to travel south to the other end of the island to get a railroad east, or go west into Jamaica and turn around and go east. South was out; no real, reliable public transportation on Long Island. At best, I could get to the nearest mall. The other commute was 4 hours each way and a cab ride. The court, in its infinite wisdom, pretty much stated transportation was your own concern, and we couldnt’ be bothered. Just be there.
In the end, I ignored the notice. Pretended I never got it. By the time they got around to sending another, including the admonishment that I had missed the previous call, I was a NYC resident and told them, in nicer words, to take their jury notice and shove it up their arses sideways.
I sat on a grand jury once. 30 days, in January. I would go to work for an hour or so before jury duty, but I feel that, in the end, missing one of the busiest times of the year, jury duty cost me a promotion (announced in April). I lost valuable face time in front of my boss, and my boss’ boss, and others got a chance to shine running my team in my absence.
The Peterson jury just spend most of 6(?) months away from work. I don’t care how much your employer chooses to reimburse, that’s 6 months of everyone else jockeying for whatever position, promotion or raise you want. That is unfair to every juror and alternate.
So if the fact that I will avoid a system that has evolved into a bureaucratic game of chess between lawyers less interested in right and wrong than in furthering their own careers or collecting a contingency fee makes me an irresponsible asshole…well, I’ve been called worse by better.
Entirely subjective. I can think of nothing crueler or more inhumane than to be told the precise moment of your death and having to face and fight it.
YMMV.
Ooh. A new twist to the little story. Yeah, that makes all of the difference in the world. I bet not a single other person who actually wasn’t an irresponsible dickhead and served were financially independent and got to court using transporter technology. Nice try but still an asshole.
Haj